As I was walking into Pacific Centre to get some lunch, I passed the lotto stand and saw a BCTV cameraman interviewing the customers, gathering footage. This is no doubt because this week's lotto 649 jackpot is a 'big, BIG $40 million!!!' I found myself trying to recall exactly how many times I'd seen such stories on the evening news about the current lotto jackpot. Human interest story? Yeah, my ass. I wonder how much news organizations have been paid off to run these thinly-veiled lotto advertisements. And of course, it is our conservative-leaning friends at BCTV perpetuating the Horatio Alger myth that if we're all just patient, we'll eventually all be fabulously rich. Isn't there some more important story they could be running? Doesn't their journalistic integrity compel them to present something relevant and educational to the public? Oh, silly me: I'm being an idealist again...